Xanthe

I sometimes wonder what Ellen would have done with Vicky after Anne Heche or after Jensen. Original Vicky's bitterness was very raw, especially after Jake decided he preferred Marley.

Robert Carradine has died. I did not know that Martha Plimpton is a Carradine. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/feb/24/robert-carradine-dies-aged-71-death-revenge-of-the-nerds-actor

I think the writing for MJ was a huge part of the issue here. I thought Kathleen Layman was wonderful but she didn't have to put up with being demoted at work, changed from an eldest child and college graduate to a middle child and aspiring singer who had fallen into prostitution, and contrasted with poor wooby Chad who was somehow hardly to blame at all for operating a stable of prostitutes. I liked Sally Spencer and Ed Fry together but the storyline was handled very poorly. I think Nancy was the one who got treated as a placeholder for Amanda and Cheryl was replaced by Josie Watts. I am torn because I liked the character of Paulina but I would have liked to see Nancy and Amanda interacting. I was never very happy with Sandra Ferguson as Amanda. I have seen some episodes of the series Madame Secretary recently and I think that Stevie McCord as played by Wallis Currie-Wood (obviously too young to have played the part of Amanda, just an example) is the kind of character I think young Amanda was supposed to be and never was. IMO Lauri Landry came across as a bit too strict and prim for Nicole, but Anne Howard's Nicole was a bit too naive. I do wish that both Peter and Nicole had been around for longer. But because the characters left having burned all of their boats and the last actors to play them had not been ragingly popular, no later PTB felt compelled to resurrect them.

In his book he talks about how gradually over time he stopped hiring sub-writers in order to just do everything himself. I don't know how accurate that is but I wonder how that timeline might line up with a decline in quality.

According to the AWHP, Marlowe assumed the rôle in July 1969. If so NBC was making no effort to be current. I note also that Macdonald Carey is used as the face of Days of Our Lives. Certainly current in that case but was Tom any more of a lead than Jim at that time? Maybe they were just going for patriarch?

Jesse Jackson has died. NBC NewsRev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights icon, dies at 84“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement Tuesday.

Aunt Liz was wealthy compared to Jim Matthews but even so Jim must have been relatively comfortable when he set up some kind of fund for Jamie. Did Liz come from money or was it due to Will's business?

Lots of obituaries are created and updated well in advance for famous people so as to be ready to go, so I wouldn't read too much into it from that angle. We'll have to wait and see if there is more info. I am shocked and saddened by the news.

Thanks. That surprised me at first because I was assuming that the apartment would have been modest, but I see from the AWHP synopses that Rachel managed to get them into an apartment beyond their means and that was where they were when Russ left. There are references to her using the money Jim and Mary had given them for Jamie, and thinking about earning money by having baby Jamie get into modeling! But it looks like she and Russ had moved into a more modest apartment in the spring of 1969 and about a year later Rachel arranged the move to the "luxury" apartment.

I know Rachel and Russ lived there together with Jim and Mary early in their marriage. Did they move out together before their marriage broke up? I know nothing Russ provided for her was ever good enough for Rachel but I can't remember whether they had their own place.

This is a very silly coincidence, but TCM is showing King's Row right now, and I was thinking about the fact that two of its stars have a connection to Another World -- Ann Sheridan, who played Katharine Corning, and Bob Cummings, whose son (by his third wife) Tony played Rick Halloway -- when Parris (Bob Cummings) suddenly said to Drake (Ronald Reagan): "Dr Tower said something once: each of us live in multiple worlds." The echo of "we do not live in this world alone but in a thousand other worlds" made me laugh.

Thank you! I remember the pre-Majorca drama with Catlin on the lam and Donna keeping him in her secret cellar room. Sally had been hypnotized to try to recall details of David's murder, and I believe that it was in the hypnosis session that she remembered seeing a woman's hand with a ring holding the gun that shot David. But also the hypnotist had programmed Sally to shoot Catlin, which explains the shocking scene here. Marley's hair was quite something in her scene with Ben in the stables. I did love though how both the presence of Catlin and Marley's relationship with Ben opened up the revelations about Donna's lost love and Marley's parentage. Anna Stuart was terrific.

I read this and could not believe my eyes. I could neither remember it nor imagine it. So I rushed to the AWHP to get the deets and although I found them I still feel like I am being pranked. And I find it hard to believe that the show took the relationship seriously either because it seems like they never had a real sexual relationship. It's ridiculous. Also apparently this was around the time that Rachel had been blind again for some reason. Wow.

The credits have Sam Hall as the HW and the change to Margaret dePriest will be in weeks if not days at this point. There's a lot going on on the Love side and it won't be long before Mitch is back which occupies Rachel a bit. In a less hectic environment I expect there would have been more Rachel and Michael but it feels like it got disregarded in the HW transition. It would have been nice for Michael to interact with Ada as well.

That was the first thing she asked him about, as a matter of fact. And they talk about being latchkey kids and hanging out together after school wishing their mothers were home, which doesn't sound like he lived on a farm. He also doesn't mention knowing Iris, but he doesn't claim not to know Iris either.